


I Loved You First

by IoanNemos



Category: Portal (Video Game)
Genre: Cancer, F/M, Human Wheatley, Songfic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-25
Updated: 2016-05-25
Packaged: 2018-06-10 14:39:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,493
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6961051
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/IoanNemos/pseuds/IoanNemos
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“Now, maybe you don't have any tumors. Well, don't worry... we took care of that too.”</p><p>Human!Wheatley x Chell, songfic drabbles based on Regina Spektor's "Samson."</p>
            </blockquote>





	I Loved You First

**Author's Note:**

> As far as I'm concerned, Wheatley's humanity is a law of the universe. Also, I love the idea of him playing piano.
> 
> I have been told this is sadder than necessary.

You are my sweetest downfall  
I loved you first  
I loved you first  
\---

They are inseparable, joined at the hands. When asked how they met, he looks abashed and she smiles enigmatically; neither elaborate.

Physically, they’re like day and night. He’s blond, she’s brunette; he’s rail-thin, she’s well-built; he’s tall, she’s short. He chatters about everything and nothing; she says only his name, unless the situation calls for a one-word sentence.

While they sit in the waiting room, he murmurs in her ear and she nods periodically, and the fingers of his right hand appear inextricably intertwined with the fingers of her left hand. When the nurse calls him, they both stand, and the nurse’s hesitation is overruled by his apologetic smile and her immovability from his side.

The tests are handled with a tightening of their hands, nothing more. The test results ( _cancer_ ) are handled exactly the same way. Their knuckles whiten, and they both nod, as if they both have it.

\---  
Beneath the sheets of paper lies my truth  
I have to go  
I have to go  
Your hair was long when we first met  
\---

Fingers on keys, skittering, tripping--

“What are you doing?”

“Composing.”

Melancholic, key of D minor--

“ _\--which is the saddest of all keys, I find. People weep instantly when they hear it--_ ”

Fumble, stagger, six/eight time?--

Cut time?--

Twice as fast?--

Slow and sad?--

 _No no no no no_ \--

Arpeggio, _ritardando_ , ppp, barely-there strokes--

“Wheatley?”

_How do you chart the curve of a cheek in musical notes?_

_Why would you think you could?_

Leaps, bangs, ten keys or more tangled--

“Wheatley?”

“I’m calling it ‘Chell.’”

_What will I leave behind?_

_Who do I leave behind?_

\---  
Samson went back to bed  
Not much hair left on his head  
He ate a slice of wonder bread and went right back to bed  
\---

He has submitted, for now, to the idea of recovery. But it is not a hope, it is a tether, a rope around the waist to be tolerated until she can bear to untie it.

Depression is expected; that doesn’t make it easier to bear.

The chemotherapy is awful. He’s so exhausted from it some days he can barely get out of bed, and he feels as if it’s killing everything inside him.

His no expectations are hurting her, and hurting her hurts him, so it spirals into a vicious cycle down an emotional drain.

He’s very tired of hurting.

\---  
And history books forgot about us and the Bible didn't mention us  
And the Bible didn't mention us  
Not even once  
\---

 _No change_ and _I’m so tired_ and _A year at most_ and--

Everything is numb, even the tears slipping down his face can’t be felt, and--

“It’s a few months but I’ll be worse than useless and sick all the time and--”

“Wheatley--”

“No, no, I don’t want to be sick, I want--”

A swallow, a clutching of her fingers--

“I want to do what we can, I want to fill it all with you, not appointments and hospitals--”

She shakes her head.

“Chell--

“Please.”

She stands in the doorway an hour later, face tear-stained but calm, and nods. “Okay.”

\---  
You are my sweetest downfall  
I loved you first  
I loved you first  
\---

They drive, he talks, she listens.

They stop at all the historical markers and take pictures and wonder what it looked like when it was ‘ _\--on that historic day--_ ’.

His hair hasn’t grown back yet, so they go shopping for hats and scarves and try them all on and take pictures and laugh loudly and are never out of arm’s reach.

They eat when they’re hungry and sleep when they’re tired, regularity bedamned.

They go to museums and movies and zoos and factory tours and laugh loudly and cling to each other like magnets.

He fills his months with her.

\---  
Beneath the stars came fallin' on our heads  
But they're just old light  
They're just old light  
Your hair was long when we first met  
\---

Crickets chirp all around them in the deep blue of midnight. Another meteor streaks across the sky, and he gasps, pointing, as if she hasn’t been looking with him. “Ooh, look. There goes another one.”

“Mm,” she says, stroking his quarter-inch of hair, stiff and white-blond. His head is resting on her stomach and she can feel his voice vibrate.

“Let’s stay here all night.”

 _We’ll be stiff and cold tomorrow._ She nods. “Okay.”

“All the light we’re seeing has come across billions of miles,” he whispers. She can just make out his eyes in the dark, wide and amazed.

\---  
Samson came to my bed  
Told me that my hair was red  
Told me I was beautiful, and came into my bed  
\---

She can hear his frown. “This is more complicated than it looks.” His fingers twitch, then disentangle themselves and the brush goes through her hair again. “Sorry.”

She hums. Usually she can’t stand this, but a timer in the back of her mind is counting down and she ignores the muscles that want to squirm.

Strands of her hair play through his fingers and with something closer to experience than skill he begins to French-braid it again. “Oh, there it is! Got it!”

She hums again.

“You’re beautiful, you know.”

The room’s air disappears and without warning she starts sobbing.

\---  
Oh, I cut his hair myself one night  
A pair of dull scissors in the yellow light  
And he told me that I'd done alright  
And kissed me till the mornin' light, the mornin' light  
And he kissed me till the mornin' light  
\---

She sits alone in the kitchen  
waiting for nothing  
when he comes in  
trembling  
apologetic  
and she fears.

“What is it?”

He agonizes  
stammers  
something about a waste of her time  
and what is he to her  
and shouldn’t even have asked--

but he was so afraid--  
lonely--  
_so lonely--_

She cannot cross the room fast enough--  
hands held up to slow him down--  
and as he shivers  
weeping  
she grips his hand in hers  
she lays a hand on his breaking heart  
and she silences him with a kiss  
only coming up for air to say  
“I love you.”

\---  
Samson went back to bed  
Not much hair left on his head  
Ate a slice of wonder bread and went right back to bed  
\---

We have begun

to slow

down

as you tear easily

like white fragile crumpled

tissue paper

(but quiet

content

peaceful

and I rush

to make

each moment

count

To catch

every moment

as it slips away

to store

every memory

in a photo album

smiles and tears)

Remember when

we went to that church

and tried to find

the oldest tombstones

and the most unique names

Then you said

Isn’t it a pretty church

Let’s go inside

And the pastor was there

and asked if we were married

And I said

not yet

Would you?

And you started

and smiled

\---  
Oh, we couldn't bring the columns down  
Yeah, we couldn't destroy a single one  
And history books forgot about us  
And the Bible didn't mention us  
Not even once  
\---

She doesn’t tell him she can’t find anything about the fall of Aperture.

She doesn’t tell him she can’t find anything about Aperture at all.

She doesn’t tell him she can’t find anything about the missing astronauts.

She doesn’t tell him she was kicked off a forum for asking about the missing astronauts.

She doesn’t tell him someone sent a virus to her computer after asking about Aperture.

She doesn’t tell him that someone has swept Aperture under the rug and his death means more silence.

 

She tells him daily she’ll miss him.

She tells him hourly she loves him.

\---  
You are my sweetest downfall  
I loved you first  
\---

The gravestone is simple. No dates, a single name, a single added line of text because his name alone looked so cold, so formal, so lonely.

WHEATLEY  
LOVED BY CHELL

She clutches, very carefully, the Polaroid taken in a tiny town whose name she can’t remember but where they laughed so hard they cried at what she can’t remember but she has it, she has captured this moment on a tiny piece of shiny paper, she sees their half-closed watering eyes and matching grins and the way he smiled at her and the way his eyes were electric-blue portals bursting with adoration and she can hear his laughter and the way he said “Man alive...” as he gasped for breath afterward and the way they both hiccuped for a half-hour and how a single look was enough to send them both back into giggles and she remembers the warmth of his hand as it gripped hers under the table.

And viruses bedamned, Aperture bedamned, government bedamned, she will drag the truth into the light if it kills her.

She touches the top of the gravestone, then turns away and doesn’t look back.

In her hands, they laugh until they cry.


End file.
